Time
by Krystal Kerro Sky
Summary: Cornelius, 17, meets the strangest person by far since he met Wilbur from the future.
1. Time

Time

It was early morning when the young scientist ventured into the humming area that constituted as his lab. Successes and failures alike lined the walls, mingling with works in progress. They were all shadows in the pre-dawn darkness. The sun had yet to rise, but tinted the sky faint pink, a dark rainbow of color that was slowly brightening as the seconds ticked by.

Shoes were soft on the golden tile, socks a rutty mess about his ankles. His pants were food-stained, ink-stained, and grease-stained. He didn't bother to change them, or probably to even take them off before falling into bed 4 hours before. His shirt was wrinkled, sporting similar stains to his pants. The only thing that never seemed to change about him was his glasses and hair. His hair was always a vertical mess, but that also gave him more character.

Blue eyes scanned the darkness before finding the remote to turn the lights on, flicking the switch. Halogen lights warming up, bulbs arching over the atrium windows support beams, casting their glow to the golden floor below. Strange shadows played from the lessening darkness, gliding across the floor to the safety of cover from the light. The lab was, per usual, quiet and brightly lit.

Grabbing his lab coat, the light blue material just as stained as his clothing (which meant that he really needed to get it washed, or at least take some time away from working) slipped onto and hung from thin shoulders. Trudging to his design desk, he stopped short. There was already someone in here. The man was reclining in the chair, one of the composition notebooks, floating in the air, open before him. The page turned without any gesture from him.

The man was dressed in brown, the material looked like velvet, with a faint sheen and fuzzy texture. He was well built, muscular, with hard lines etched in his face, and dark hair tinged with silver at the temples. He was old, but hardly looked it. A white cloak was tied around his neck, the fabric loose and crumbled to the floor, but seemed to still move as if blown in a non-existent wind. Behind him was a staff that towered over them both, the silver blades glittering in the increasing light as it hovered off the floor. The purple stones flowed into green and back again; shifting back and forth.

The man turned indigo eyes towards Lewis, smiling an award-winning smile. "Thanks. I couldn't find the light switch, so I was reading in the dark." His voice was light, baritone, sounding wise beyond years, beyond age.

It took several long moments for Lewis to open his mouth, and voice the question that had stormed his brain. "Who are you, and how did you get in here?" No one should have been able to get into his lab, not without a key, or him to unlock the door, or breaking in. None of the windows above looked shattered, and the door had still been locked.

The man looked back to the book, motioned with his hand, and the book closed, dropping back to the desk with a soft thump. The man stood, nearly 6-foot, and the staff still towered over him. "Through a window; I'm able to pass through glass, as it is partially liquid anyway." He replied, taking a breath to speak again. "My name is Alexander Darkfire; I am the Vassal and Messenger of Sol, the Elemental of Time. I am the deity of Garan; Time Mage and Creator, Traveler and Teacher of the Magus Arts. You, young Cornelius, have trod upon ground that you should leave alone for now."

Cornelius or Lewis, the name didn't matter, blinked several times, before shaking his head. "What? What 'ground'? That doesn't explain why you are here, either." He retorted, not believing that this crack-pot man was what he said he was. Magic didn't exist.

"I am here to show you why you should leave this alone, until I tell you that you can begin again." He tapped the notebook. "When we are done, you need to lock this up, and give me the key. I shall return it when you can truly begin working on Time Travel again."

"And why should I follow your rules?" The young man asked, arms crossed. The more this man spoke, with that arrogant tone, Deity or not, the more Cornelius disliked him.

Darkfire stepped from the desk, walking about the lab, the hood of the cloak pushed back, revealing a red-lining within. The cloak itself moved fluidly around him, swirling, catching, and hanging of its own accord, doing what it wanted. "Because if you don't… all this, everything here, that you have and know of, would be gone." He waved a hand about the room, indicating not just this place, but everything beyond it, the people, the city.

"There are alternate worlds out there, all possible, Quantum Physics, if you will; triggered by events that _you_ chose. From this point, there is no true, destined, future, just key events to shape it. The future you saw when you were twelve was a possibility, the most probable one. If you continue exactly as you have been, working on _this_—" He tapped the notebook on the desk. "—you lose that future, because you have been told _when_ you start tinkering with Time Travel. Prepatory research can be very bad in certain situations." He paused, looking up at the windows, before dragging his gaze back to Cornelius. "According to what you know, what you were told by your future son, you begin Time Travel Research when you are about 37. You still have twenty years, Cornelius, before you should even begin working on this."

Cornelius wasn't buying the act, but couldn't help but hear that Darkfire's words made sense. He wanted Franny as his wife, Wilbur as his son, that entire family to be his. He didn't want to destroy that chance, that time stream. The anger before faded after a short moment to think, to analyze the information.

Giving the teen time to think, Darkfire continued his stroll around, then speaking again. "Time is linear to a person, to a living being. A clock measures Time; Time has been labeled into increments, but in all reality… Time is but a moment, a speck, a dot. It is, then is not. The energy that Time produces, when Measured, when called Linear, is immense… allowing travel to different moments alone that measurement, along that line. Creatures can only exist when they define something as passing along with them, that Time is moving. But it already moved. It was here, but now it is not. Every moment, every second that goes by has already happened, will happen again, and never happened. All at once."

The man strode around Cornelius, white cloak flaring out, brown velvet hugging his strong features. "Let's say… that Time is a Line, you can stretch it out, and that all Human Beings share that line, that same thread. Now… One human in the future has the capability to travel that line—" He spun, lifting his hands, and then spreading them apart, a single line forming between his palms. Near his left hand, a ball of light glowed. "The light is the Human in the Future Who Can Travel. Now, say this Human goes back—" The light picked itself up from the line, and moved to the right hand "—and takes a person from the Past—" the light settled back to the line, taking on another color, signifying two riders, but then that shade of light was gone from the thread. The light picked itself back up, and moved back to the left hand. "—and brings them to the future. Now, that Person of the Past no longer exists, he never was after his moment of departure, and is not until he arrived in the future." The light settled back, and the missing color returned to the thread. "But, you know that you went back, to just after you left, thus creating an alternate line—" the line between his hands suddenly shot off in multiple directions, causing the mage to blink as if this wasn't expected. "Or many of them, as this wants to think. But this is just a rhetorical model, just an example as if it was true, but it is not." He dropped his hands and the lines and light faded.

Cornelius stared, having fallen against a counter for support. It was common belief that all people were on one line, that all traveled the same thread, as Darkfire put it. He didn't exist, then that future he saw, wasn't created by him. That 'Cornelius' in the future wasn't him, couldn't possibly be him. Wilbur had killed him in the past and--

"Lewis." Indigo eyes met his sky-blue ones. There was a hint of anger in the appearance now, the eyes borring into him. "That was not real, it was an example of what you idiots believe right now. I'm telling you the Truth of Time! You _will_ become the foremost expert on Time, and damnit, you will be by the time I'm done with you." The eyes suddenly softened. "Now, here is what really is."

Darkfire lifted his large hands once more, and a ball of light appeared between them. "This is Time, larger so you can see what it really is. Come here and look, kiddo."

Pushing himself up, taking cautious steps closer to the stranger, he peered at the ball, blinking when he saw it was made of a tangle of lines; thread rolled together, millions of them.

"This, is Time. This is the moment, the instant of existence for Time." He dug his fingers into it, and pulled gently, pulling the ball apart, laying the lines flat, neatly, so they could be seen. "This is what you measure." The lines continued past his hands, seemingly fading out. "I have isolated the Current, here, a decade in each direction. The white vertical line is Current, to my left is Future, to my right is Past. Now, here is your line…" A blue-red line glowed, and they zoomed in, seeing that it was rather messy half-way towards Past. "This is when you traveled to the Future; see, it jumps, loops up, out of sight, and then back again, the moments you traveled to-and-from. Your time is Linear, this is your thread, how you measure, mentally, the passage of Time. You left, and then came back, continued on. You still existed to create that blue-sky future of yours."

Cornelius reached out, touching his line. "This is… real? This is fact?!" was all he managed to get out, his voice catching with amazement at what he was seeing. Now he was starting to believe that this man was everything he said he was, and possibly more.

Darkfire sighed, dropping his hands, the lines vanishing. "Yes. I guess I need to keep in mind you are a scientist, and not a mage. Mages believe that they can create something to be real: if they can form it, it is real. They are similar to scientists, but their medium is energy, pure and straight-forward, energy. Fact and Real, well, we don't exactly worry about those too much." He glanced the lab over once, and then met the eyes of the young inventor. His tangent of the Magus had lost the poor kid. He smirked, shaking his head.

"Cornelius, Trust me when I say that I know what I am talking about. You need to stop this research right now, or you will destroy your world. I have seen it happen before when others, much like yourself, trod into this realm, and do not stop when I warn them over and over, time and time again. I have shown hundreds exactly what I have shown you, and still lost hundreds of worlds because of it."

The young man nodded, and walked to the desk. He picked up the notebook, paging through it. He still didn't understand fully, couldn't truly bring himself to trust what he had just been told, just seen with his own eyes, and felt with his own fingers. Now, since he at least had some idea of his future, he wanted to know the end, and perhaps… perhaps this man could help him, answer this last, burning question. "Darkfire… Is the time of someone's death predetermined?"

Darkfire stepped close; looking over the young mans shoulder at the notebook. "Depends on what you believe in. Reincarnation, or One-Chance-At-Life. What you believe in changes the outcome of your life-line, your Time-line. If you believe that this is all you get, this one chance, this one life, then when you finally expire, that is it, you are gone, your spirit, your soul, your mind, are gone." He reached over, and took the note book. "You can't cheat death with a Time Machine, Cornelius. You can, though, cheat it with technology… if you can keep the brain alive after the body stops, then you can save the soul and the spirit." He looked at the open page, and sighed once more.

"I… I don't want to cheat it.. I want to know how much time I have, how long I have to affect the world. If I could prevent it, I would, unless I…" He trailed off, letting the book go.

"Unless you lived a full life? Cornelius, you do, trust me, you do." Darkfire replied, placing a hand on the inventor's shoulder, giving a reassuring squeeze. "You'll have a loving wife, Franny. A wonderful son, Wilbur, though he will be very much a trouble-maker. You have the family you always wanted, they are just what you need to support you, the support you have always searched for.

"Beyond the age of 42, though, is when things become hazy, because you, right now, do not know what happens beyond that. You can measure the past by the centuries, millennia, but the Future… the Future you can't see beyond a year, maybe two. You are a new person every time you wake up, the world is always new, and the people always change." He glanced to the notebook in his hand, and then stepped in front of Cornelius, meeting blue eyes with his indigo ones. He opened the note book up, showing the young man the pages where pencil had scrawled questions, thoughts, but no answers, no proof.

"Here… let me have this book for 20 years, and I'll write down everything for you, everything you need to know about Time, about how you can control it. How you _harness_ it; that is up to you, Inventor-boy. I will write down the facts, the equations, and all the things that will make sense, and then bring it back to you on the night you wake up in a cold sweat, Time running circles through your mind." He closed the notebook, and tucked it under his cloak, meeting the young mans blue eyes.

"But, that's cheating." Cornelius muttered, taking a step away from the man. "If you give me all the answers, then how am I to learn, to research anything?"

"You let me be the one to provide all the information, to do all the work for you. Believe me, you will learn quite a lot by the time I return it… And as for cheating, you have a point, but I've never been one to follow any rules, even my own." Darkfire replied, shrugging his shoulders with a quirky smile. "As for right now, just don't worry about Time Travel, and get to work on that Flying Car idea. You have the drive to make the world a better place, so start to it." The Time Mage grabbed the staff, the gems set into it glowing brightly, and then he was gone.

_20 years later……………_

The room was dark, not even moonlight filtering in through the massive over-head windows. Two figures were curled up together on the giant bed, the sheets rumpled, their skin bare. From the darkness green light flared, shifting into purple, and then back again. Next to it, a white cloak materialized; the figure underneath imposing as he strode silently to the sleeping figures.

A pale hand stretched out, slightly older, gnarled, and pressed two fingers to the forehead of the blond-haired male. Dreamland was interrupted, Time flashing.

Cornelius sat straight up, cold sweat running down his back and face instantly. He saw the glow of green and purple, the outline of a white cloak, and then _plop_ into his lap was a thick notebook, crammed full with extra pages, drawings. The woman next to him stirred, opening her eyes, and looked to her husband.

Slowly, very carefully, Cornelius touched the cover, and slide a finger to open it, letting the pages lay open. The lettering glowed with soft light, allowing him to read it in the darkness. This was the secrets of Time, what he had pushed aside, but now it was open before him, the information of ages, just like he had been promised.

"_I said 20 years, kiddo, now get to work._" Echoed that wise and cocky voice from years ago, turning through his mind. Blue eyes shot up, looking again for the figure, but they were gone. Snapping the book shut once more, he sprang from the bed, pulling his robe on, and flying out the bedroom door, racing for the lab.

Time was on his side.

* * *

_Notes: Alexander Darkfire is based off Chronos in the book 'Bearing the Hourglass' and some of Lachesis in 'With a Tangled Skein' (and my own little world that he says he is from), and the Time described here is from a million other books and movies I have seen/read on time travel. This is my belief on the matter. Oh, and multiple nods to Demyrie and her 'Blue Sky Future' and for all the times that story made me shudder with confusion and something akin to repulsion (nausea?). Takes good writing to disturb and creep me out that much. Please Reveiw... though you don't absolutly have too.  
_


	2. Time Again

Time Again

Note: Because of a comment that Cornelius didn't talk very much in the first chapter, and that I found a few inconsistencies of my own within it, here is a second chapter.

(Cornelius is 37, to be 38 in a few months, 2032)

The Lab was dark, like it was every morning. The machines had changed over the years, either finished and moved to a new home, or dismantled, their old places taken up by new projects. Papers were spread across the floor, the parchment yellow, green, orange, faded-white, scribbled on, doodled-over, glowing letters covering every inch of it. Among the mess was a man, golden hair defying gravity with no effort. He didn't need the lights, his sky-eyes adjusted to read the blue-glow of the letters, the symbols. Rarely would a project consume him to the point of for-going sleep. In the dark morning light, sunrise still some time away, he was working, reading, copying, learning, researching, soaking in information that had been given to him. It was a drug; he had to know, needed to know, wanted to know. It was in his veins, sustenance, every word, every curve of a picture, lending him strength. He wasn't even though most of the book, hell, he wasn't even past the first 100 pages, and already he had ideas, thoughts, plans, _inventions_ that would benefit from Time. Everything he drew changed the more he read, the more he learned.

"Ya know, you should learn to get some sleep, kiddo."

Sky eyes shot up, pulled away from the blue-glow, blind in the darkness. A switch clicked, lights above beginning their warm-up glow, and sitting on a counter was a man he thought he had seen a few months ago, but had truly met two decades past. His source was here, reclining against the wall, ankles crossed. The staff was there, a sentinel, watching him. "D-darkfire."

"Seriously… I was almost tempted to sleep with her, seeing how lonely she looked."

It took a few moments for his mind to wrap around and focus on the facts that he had people outside his lab, a family that was probably wondering what the heck happened to him. Rubbing 2-day fuzz, the man on the floor shrugged. "She would have killed you if you had tried." He replied carefully, hiding a yawn. His attention was broken; the lights affecting his vision and making the words blur, then disappear from the pages. One of the reasons he read in the dark.

"Probably." Darkfire replied, sliding from the counter to walk over to him and scoop up a handful of papers. Numbers had been written in the corners of each page that came free. "Hmm…"

"I'm glad you're here, actually. I need to comment that this book is full of contradictions, incomplete thoughts, and has lead me to questions that no matter how many times I go through it, I can't find the answers to." Cornelius said, organizing the papers into order, and sticking them back into the notebook, which had been specially tapped to hold together. "I didn't know how to contact you to ask you, either."

Darkfire handed the pages over, smirking. "I expect you to find the answers yourself, and not rely on me for this. Look outside the box, if you will."

The scientist paused, taking a deep breath. "One question, then."

"Hit me." Darkfire replied, leaning against an invention.

"If Time is an instant, a sphere of thread, then you know the future, correct?" Cornelius asked, smiling as if he had caught the winning catch, that this would end this little game, this puzzle he had to figure out.

Darkfire smirked, crossing his arms. "If Time is an instant, then Past, Current, and Future have no bearing. There is just:" He snapped his fingers. "That."

The smile deflated, and the scientist dropped the papers into a fire-proof box, locking it up. "That is what you had been saying the whole time in this, but I just can't understand that. Time is an Instant. Is, then is not. Yet to exist, it must be measured, it must pass. I have compared it to everything, but I just can't…" Cornelius had gotten to his feet, taking his research box to the desk. The box hit the desk with a heavy _thunk_. Taking a breath, he re-gathered suddenly scattered thoughts. "Ok, when the past changes, such as when Wilbur goes back in time to when I'm twelve, that changes things, I changed things. I woke Goob up, which I'm going to assume that prevents him from becoming Bowler Hat Guy. I know to never invent Helping Hats, so that stops Doris from being created. And those two are needed to steal the Time Machine, to make Wilbur go into the past to meet me when I was younger."

Darkfire sighed. "Remember when I showed you the first model, and told you it was rhetorical? Well, that is only half true." He lifted his hands, and all three models from 20 years ago appeared. "Now, the single line, when stretched, can be twisted into the sphere, same with the million lines. But let's focus on the single line." The other two models disappeared. "This is general. You know that everyone has their own line, but a single line will represent general events. You are the key for this line." He wiggled his fingers, and a mini-Cornelius appeared in the air over the line. It danced a little jig before settling into a scholar-pose. "Now, when you woke your friend, and claimed you would never invent Doris, you changed the line, it went off in another direction. You have been following this new line… the Wilbur you met remained on the original line. If he were to go back into the past again, he would not come here, to you. He would be going back into the past of his life, where Doris had been created, where Bowler Hat Guy does come to be, where you never wake up Goob, and all you cared about was your invention working. That you would never know who Wilbur is." He let it sink in for a second. "Now, this new line is very close to the original one, and maybe a slip or two might make it shift back into the original line. Perhaps you do create Helping Hats, and Doris does exist, and she finds a new patsy, steals a time machine, and poof, that does come to pass. Puts you right back to the original line, or makes this the original line."

Cornelius tilted his head to one side, face blank. "Wait… This is a deviated line?"

Darkfire blinked, as though catching himself. "Yes, in a sense. Let me explain, but not using you as an example." He waved his hands, the line and mini-Cornelius fading out. "Ok, back on Garan there is a half-dragon, named Turin. He was once human. I knew him as an enemy before I became a Time Mage. When I knew him, we were both mortals, human. We fought, constantly. Typical bad guy verse good guy. Now, Turin was a young kid, very smart, very independent. He was asked by my arch nemesis to join him. Now, Turin had a choice, where his line split. He told the evil guy no, thus remaining independent, and eventually creating a third faction. The other line was that he said yes, joined the man, and kicked my ass from here to the moon. But when he said no, he changed not just his line, but the entire line for the world.

"There are key events, key people, who can do that; deviate the entire line for everyone. You are one such person. Everyone has a life-changing opportunity, where if they say yes or no, turn one way or another, they can affect everyone on the planet, throwing everyone down a different path." He took a breath, thinking for a moment. "I guess using the term Original Line was inaccurate. The moment you are, right now, is, as far as you should be concerned, the original line. Some of the exacts you learned about your future might be a bit… off, but only a few details will change."

Cornelius dropped into a chair, its gears and wheels protesting to the sudden weight. "To think, I was told the future is not set in stone, but here I am, worrying about it, worried that I might change something."

"The only thing set in stone is your past. The future is a blank canvas… and it looks like the sun is about to paint the city into the million bright colors that you made it." Darkfire replied, looking up at the windows. "Kiddo, if you ever need to talk to me again, don't hesitate to call." He drew something on a sheet of blueprint paper, and left a purple and green, perfectly cut gem on top of it.

When Cornelius blinked, Darkfire was gone, and the lights were reflecting inside the stone. "You know, that really didn't answer my question, and are you ever going to stay around long enough to have a decent, _normal_ conversation?" He knew he was talking to thin air. "I wouldn't mind learning about your world as well, since you already seem to know so much about mine!" He dropped his shoulders, shaking his head.

"Honey? Is everything all right?"

He turned to see Franny, dressed in her pajamas and a light robe, looking up at him with tired eyes, her hair hanging free and slightly messy. He must look a fright himself, and talking to the machines probably didn't help his sanity quotient. "Yeah, everything is just fine."


End file.
